Nikhil Menon on Planning Democracy
Ideas of India
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The National Sample Survey Is So Important for Development Planning and Nation Building
The national sample survey in some ways sort of I think crystallizes the different ways in which Mahal and Obis was plugged into Indian sort of nation building and from the 1950s onwards. The NSS service is very reminiscent of like I said Sukumar Sen setting up India as a democracy right like it's literally these surveyors there's so few of them they can't have sampling error. They are also like Sukumar Sen traveling by elephant to these far from places to actually get a sense of what people are eating and you know formulating the questions. Even modern day UN world bank figures everything we get from Africa they're based on the sample surveys that Mahal andObis are upright
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